This invention relates generally to online social networking systems, and in particular to initiation of private communication sessions via client devices within a social networking system.
Online social networking systems often present electronic media content items to users. For example, a social networking system may present an online news article in a newsfeed. Such content items are viewed by users on client devices, for example, a laptop or a mobile device. Social networking systems allow users to connect and interact with each other, and allow users to post and interact with content items displayed by the system. For example, users may interact with content items on a social networking system by posting comments related to the content item.
Conventional techniques for presenting user interactions with content items to other users may display a user's comments to all other users of the social networking system. Thus, users sometimes must scroll through a long list of comments on a content item without a way to readily focus on certain user's comments. In addition, conventional techniques may require a user to use a separate messaging application for private messages, thereby providing more limited user experience. A user may be less likely to engage with the user's social network if certain types of communications require extra steps by the user to access a separate application, or if otherwise it is not quick and easy for the user to communicate in the desired way with other users.